another old story

in 1969 i was in the 8th grade. we lived in los angeles county. we'd moved there from the san fransisco bay area and l.a. was a whole different world to all of us. junior high is traumatic anyway, but my shyness combined with hormones, puberty, my grandmother's death and a new life meaning for myself led to a combination of horrors in my still young life.

i had (have) a vivid imagination. i love to create stories in my mind, i love to speculate - see the best and the worst possible scenarios in all that i see. it is a habit and it can be annoying and misleading and confusing. but it is entertaining and i get bored easily.

so many new people in junior high school. so many angry people in the neighborhood we moved to. it was the first time we ever lived in a culturally diverse arena. i was used to living in a little white neighborhood with little white friends. we all spoke the same language and had pretty much the same lives as each other. not in l.a. i was scared almost all the time in l.a. i was "sick" alot at school. momma would come and get me and let me stay hhome. i think she was scared for me too...she couldn't possibly believe i was sick as much as i pretended to be. but, then, i am a good actor...and a good liar it turned out. or so i thought.

lies, acting, imagination and truth all get mixed together and then you dont know what the truth really was anymore. especially when you add 40 years on top of it all. but i think i saw a man murdered in the stairwell at school. i think i remember 2 black kids and a knife that was red and fear in eyes and running and swearing and a lump of person lying on the stairwell. i think i remember screaming and hiding. it is a psuedo memory that barks at me when i'm alone and ...well, feeling kinda nervous...like right now.